Travel Guides

Dolmabahce Palace

The Dolmabahce Palace was home to six Sultans from 1856, when it
was first inhabited, up until the abolition of the Caliphate in
1924. The last royal to live here was Caliph Abdülmecid
Efendi, before a March 3, 1924 law transferred the ownership of the
palace to the national heritage of the new Turkish Republic.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first President of
the Republic of Turkey, used the palace as a presidential residence
during the summers and enacted some of his most important works
here. Atatürk spent the last days of his medical treatment in
this palace, where he died on November 10, 1938. The palace has an
ostentatious interior of crystal chandeliers, while the exterior of
the palace has a vast, beautiful garden.